Aristide Leaves Haiti

The Associated Press reports:

U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Aristide left at about 6:45 a.m. EST, accompanied by members of his security detail. The French Foreign Ministry also said Bertrand had left the island nation.

An Associated Press reporter saw an unmarked white jet take off from Port-au-Prince's airport Sunday morning. Cabinet minister and close adviser Leslie Voltaire said Aristide was on board along with his palace security chief Frantz Gabriel.

Voltaire said Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president in 200 years of independence, was flying to the Dominican Republic and would seek asylum in Morocco, Taiwan or Panama.

Aristide left as fighters in a popular rebellion that erupted on Feb. 5 came within 25 miles of Port-au-Prince, the capital, and threatened to attack unless he resigned.

Aristide's departure comes as the mainstream press is starting to treat Haiti as failure of the Bush administration. Today's Washington Post reports that the situation in Haiti is significant to the presidential campaign in Florida:

The growing chaos and misery in Haiti have given President Bush and his administration a new and nearby crisis with major ramifications for the politics of Florida, just as he is beginning his reelection campaign.

The Post's coverage took up the press's usual negative tone against the administration:

Until the past few days, Bush had taken a largely hands-off approach as rebels spread panic and looting across the island nation about 600 miles off Florida's coast. His policy has been focused on preventing a mass influx of refugees, and a variety of Haitian experts and activists said that appeared to be a response to public opinion in Florida.

Robert A. Pastor, vice president for international affairs at American University and senior adviser to a 1994 mission to that led to Aristide's return from exile, said Bush appears reluctant to become embroiled in an election-year intervention that could fail. "This has refreshed their memory of their aversion to nation-building," Pastor said, referring to the campaign position that Bush abandoned in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[. . .]

"This is a country that is on the verge of a civil war, and you're sending people back to those hellish conditions," said Robert Fatton Jr., a native of Haiti who is chairman of the University of Virginia politics department. "What Bush is trying to do is shore up his own political base, and the Haitian American constituency is, to put it bluntly, not a part of the political calculus. They are seen as poor and uneducated and black."

The Rev. Jonas N. Georges, pastor of a Presbyterian church in North Miami Beach that conducts a service in Haitian Creole, said Haitian immigrants feel that Bush's public statements amounted to his saying to his supporters, "Trust me, I won't open the gates to them."

The Rev. Jean Fritz Bazin, pastor of a church of Haitians in Miami, said his congregants feel the United States automatically returns Haitians seeking asylum while looking for ways to allow Cubans to stay.

I think President Bush gets high marks for the handling of this crisis.

President Bush refused to support Aristide despite Aristide's pleas for help.

President Bush sent Marines to reinforce security at the U.S. embassy.

Additional Marines were put on alert in case they were needed to guard against a flood of refugees and to protect the estimated 20,000 Americans in the Caribbean country.

The White House made it clear that Aristide must resign, and that the United States military will not save him.

The White House stated it would support a "multinational interim security force" to deliver aid and ensure stability after a political settlement.

Well Done.

UPDATE: CNN reports:

Haitian Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre will be sworn in to lead a transitional government as provided by Haiti's constitution, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said in a televised address.

[. . .]

Addressing questions about Haiti's immediate future, a U.S. State Department source told CNN Sunday that "it is safe to say a multinational force" will be sent there soon.

Bush administration officials told CNN Sunday that several hundred U.S. Marines may be deployed to Haiti as soon as later in the day. The officials said the United States would need an invitation from the Haitian government so the troops would not be seen as an invasion force.

The Marines' main mission would be to repatriate Haitians trying to reach the United States by sea and to provide support for any possible future international peacekeeping force, the officials said. The officials said no plans have been finalized.